ASKING HARD QUESTIONS

Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions.  1 Kings 10:1, R.S.V.

The queen of Sheba arrived in Jerusalem to test Solomon with hard questions concerning Israel's God.  The nations around Israel marveled at the wisdom of Israel's government, and by this God's name had been uplifted.  Determined to understand the reasons behind such success and prosperity, the queen of Sheba sought out Israel's king and "told him all that was on her mind."  The record states that he "answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king which he could not explain to her" (1 Kings 10:2, 3, R.S.V.).

There is something very wonderful about this story.  Here we see a picture of God that is compellingly attractive.  Solomon expressed total openness to any questions the queen might have concerning God.  And that openness portrays God as eager for us to ask questions--so that He may answer them!

There is no need to fear that God might detect in us some unsettledness in our feelings toward Him.  If He should discover that we still have questions in our minds about Him, He will not condemn us--"How could you doubt Me?"--but rather, He encourages us to tell Him everything that is on our minds so that He might then answer all our questions.  Not one of them does He consider inappropriate or too hard to answer.

Candidly, have you not had questions in your mind to which you dared not give utterance for fear of denying your faith?  I know I have.  Even when in prayer I have sometimes tended to avoid the issues that are pressing on my heart.  Is it because I fear to show any trace of unbelief, that this would displease God?  Or is it that I am afraid to face myself?  "I'm not supposed to have any questions!  I'm supposed to trust.  I should be thankful; I should be praising God more..."

Yes, we are supposed to trust, to trust that God is absolutely committed to teaching us to live in reality.  We need to learn to deal with every issue, inwardly as well as outwardly.  He calls Himself our friend, deliberately bringing us up to His level so that we may enjoy the uninhibited communion that real friends share.  For this friendship we may be deeply thankful, knowing that He delights to answer all our questions!  Trusting Him in this way, we show our praise.

WHO SERVED WHOM FIRST?

Who is greater, the one who sits down to eat or the one who serves him?  The one who sits down, of course.  But I am among you as one who serves.  Luke 22:27, T.E.V.

Jesus had a choice: He could come to this earth as a commanding ruler, or He could come as a humble servant.  Were the choice up to us, we probably would have argued for the ruler role, simply for reasons of efficiency.  He could have drawn more attention, organized His followers more readily, and been documented in history more fully.

We know that He chose the role of the servant, but do we know why?  It is often interpreted that He did it to set us an example of humility.  That may not set well with us, however, if we see no deeper reason.

Jesus came to this earth to reveal the Father and how the Father deals with us wounded sinners.  He knew that no role would tell the truth more accurately than that of being the unwearied servant of man's necessities.

Though the Father is indeed the possessor of all power and authority and can command the galaxies in their orbit, these are not the qualities He uses in dealing with sinners.  Were He to lord His rank over us, this would intimidate us but not heal us.  He could command our submission but not win our bruised hearts.

The manner in which Jesus came reveals the kind of solution He plans for this controversy.  He desires no military conquest of the weak by the mighty.  The winner in this contest will not be the one with superior firepower, but the One with the most accurate, winsome truth.

We speak so often of serving God that we think service is only toward Him.  The incredible truth is that servanthood began in the heart of God.  He served us first.  The night Jesus knelt in front of His disciples with a towel around His waist, washing their dirty feet, He was giving them one of His clearest portrayals of His Father.  In effect He was saying, "If you have seen Me as one who will even wash dirty feet, you must know that this is what your Father is like, too."

CHANGED BY BELONGING

Put on the garments that suit God's chosen people, his own, his beloved: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience.  Col. 2:12, N.E.B.

Many people will read this passage and, ten seconds later, remember only the list of qualities that they know ought to be in their lives.  "I really must be more compassionate," they might say.  And some might even turn the verse around, concluding that when they have succeeded in becoming more compassionate they can then count themselves as "God's chosen people, his own, his beloved."

But Paul's argument runs in the opposite direction.  He knew full well that our character qualities do not establish relationship, but that relationship leads to character qualities.  Paul's powerful plea is for us to recognize just who we are within this relationship.  For God's point of view, as He describes us, He chooses His words with care and meaning.  We are His "chosen people, his own, his beloved."  That's God's statement of who we are, and it is more than sentimentality.  Is our own opinion of who we are more reliable than His?

It is a principle that is so very obvious on the human plane; why do we obscure it on the divine plane?  Read any book on family relationships and check what it says about how children become loving, confident, secure, patient people.  Virtually all authors would agree: They must be loved securely, wisely, unconditionally, by their parents.  Any parent who uses emotional distance as a form of punishment, who shatters the parent-child bond in the interest of the child's present behavior, will only compound the problem.  Ask a child to tell you the opposite of forgiveness; his answer in essence will be "condemnation."  And condemnation stifles human growth.

Is God less than man?  Would He use methods to restore and mature us that are less effective than those used by a wise parent?  Oh, that we could recognize how intensely we are loved!  How powerfully that would make us whole again.

People who are loved walk tall.  They do not do it because someone tells them they ought to.  They do it because there comes welling up from inside a solid sense of self-esteem, a sense of dignity, the security to dare and to adventure.  With their own needs met, they are free to reach out to meet others' needs--to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient.

And that's why God loves us as He does!

LIVING IN YOUR CITIZENSHIP


Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Matt. 5:10, R.S.V.

If the only forms of persecution were the dungeon and a sword, we might escape heartache more readily than we do.  The agony of today's text is that, for most of us, we don't think it applies to our lives.

At the time Jesus spoke these words, Roman soldiers often made life quite miserable for the Jewish people.  Surely He meant to comfort them in their days of bondage.  But what about you and me?  Unless we live in countries where the practice of Christianity is prohibited, or at least politically unpopular, how much do we know of this kind of persecution?

I believe that everything that Jesus said had this overriding reason: to show us the Father.  Surely, as He sat on that Galilean hillside speaking to the throngs of people, it was with careful deliberation that He spoke.  Surely He knew that you and I would ponder His words in today's world.

Consider: God openly tells us again and again that He desires that we come back into right relationship with Him, that being friends with Him is what enables us to live responsibly and accountably.  Those who refuse to be convinced that this is indeed the absolute truth have a vested interest in proving that they are right.  One way to do this is to get rid of any contradictory evidence.  And that does not just mean getting rid of believers.  It means making the responsible and accountable choices of believers appear to be irresponsible and unaccountable.

This can be done very subtly.  An unbelieving husband becomes irate because his Christian wife didn't get dinner on time.  Maybe he couldn't care less about the actual time; he's making a point--she's unaccountable!  Or an unbelieving wife makes a wisecrack about her Christian husband's choice of a vacation spot.  If he hadn't thought of it, she might have suggested it herself.  Her real point is--he is unreasonable!

Down through the corridors of time Jesus says, "Take heart!  You are the ones who are learning to live in your Father's kingdom."  You are learning to appreciate how just and true are God's ways.  These experiences in life are your best teachers.  And that is cause for rejoicing! 

THE GREAT PEACEMAKER

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.   Matt. 5:9, R.S.V.

How I wish I had the tongue of an angel!  Perhaps this is what I would say:

"I have been amazed at God's enduring love for you earthlings!  Hour by hour He is pained by your lack of response to His tender entreaties.  Pained for you!  Sometimes God commissions me to do something very tangible for you in order to reveal just how much He wants all of you.

"When Lucifer (you know him as Satan) tricked Adam and Eve into believing that God was trying to keep them from reaching their fullest potential, all of us here in heaven wept.  That's what he'd told us, too.  Some of my best companions believed him.  You should see them now.  They fight among themselves for the basest privileges.

"God treated those rebel angels with the greatest courtesy.  That should have told them something, but instead they took it to mean that God would not take care of the horrible rift they were causing here.  You think that way, too, sometimes.  What you both misunderstand is that God is taking care of the problem.   He is making peace in the universe, but not the way any of us would have suspected at first.

"God's ways of making peace is not by removing the ability to make war, but by removing the warlike desires.  That is why He has chosen the way He has to relate to you on earth.  He knows that when you feel the need to defend yourselves, it makes you defensive.  When you feel rejected, your first reaction is to reject the rejecter.  He knows that when you know you are accepted, you will be accepting.

"What touches all of our hearts up here is that we can see that His approach to you is not contrived for the sake of effect!  It is genuinely the way He is and the way He feels about you.  He knows how vulnerable you are.  He does not condemn you!  Ever!  But some of you just will not believe this, and you condemn yourselves to a life of defensiveness.

"All of us here are full of hope, though.  After Jesus lived there with you for a while, it was easier for you to believe God.  He sent Him, you know, to change your minds about Him, and not the other way around.  It's happening, too!  And you are becoming more and more like His sons and daughters!"

​SEEING IS BELIEVING

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Matt. 5:8, R.S.V.

When you love someone very much, being apart is agony.  Then comes that wonderful day when you see each other again.  You have only to watch couples at the airport to know that is a happy occasion.

Our love for God causes us to anticipate the day we can be with Him forever.  There's only one detail that might spoil our eagerness.  We have to be pure in heart.  And according to the latest tally, that means sinless!  Sinless!  Does that give your heart pause?  Who of us can claim to be even close to such an ideal?  Why, I still eat Hershey bars occasionally.

Impurity in water makes it cloudy.  Impurities in glass can render it opaque.  And so it is with the human heart.  We react wrongly because we have things in our hearts that distort our perception of situations.  Our emotions are clouded with hurts and angers.  Even our best understandings may not be accurate.

"The heart is the most deceitful of all things, desperately sick; who can fathom it?  I, the Lord, search the mind and test the heart" (Jer. 17:9, 10, N.E.B.).

Our hearts are sick, and God has a solution: "God has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it--through him.  Any man who believes in him is not judged at all.  It is the one who will not believe who stands already condemned, because he will not believe in the character of God's only Son" (John 3:17, 18, Phillips).

Believing in the character of God's only Son is to believe in the character of God Himself.  In Jesus' prayer for His disciples (and us!), He said, "Father of all goodness the world has not known you, but I have known you and these men now know that you have sent me.  I have made your self known to them" (chap. 17:25, 26, Phillips).

The misconceptions we have about God cloud our minds.  We are only acting accordingly when we relate to life in less than healthy ways.  The removal of these misconceptions allows us to see God, full of goodness and truth.  And we will act accordingly, because the patterns of our thinking will have been healed.  This is what it means to be pure in heart.

Incidentally, it's God who is waiting at the "airport" for us to come home! 

THE HAPPINESS OF SHARING GOD'S REALITIES

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.  Matt. 5:7, R.S.V.


Nothing God does is arbitrary, for He is absolutely reasonable.  If we think He is arbitrary, it is only because we have not yet come to an understanding of His ways.  One does not teach a child not to hit by hitting him.

In showing mercy, was God being condescending?  Is His the attitude of a benign potentate who has for some reason known only to himself decided to pardon the disobedient lackey?  Does that fit into your picture of a merciful God?  Though we know He loves us, we often think mercy implies a sort of sovereign choice.  Those that feel their security lies in a God who has the biggest punch must then live with the possibility that He might obliterate them, too.  The fact that He chooses not to is of little comfort.  He could change His mind.

When we hold such ideas of mercy, how could we then offer to another any better?  We can show mercy only to those who are weaker than ourselves.  It brings us to a very basic question: What is mercy?

May I suggest that mercy means not letting another's actions ruin your mutual friendship.  It allows that person the freedom to keep on relating to you even though he has compromised the friendship.  It means that you value that individual more than you care about his momentarily adverse actions.  It means that you are willing to "weather" his misbehavior as a deliberate and calculated move to heal your relationship with him.  Mercy is in the service of restoring the friendship to all that it was meant to be.

God relates to us with a deliberateness born of intelligent understanding of our need to feel secure in His presence.  He well knows how prone we are to hide from Him.  So that we have no need to fear, He explains that He has chosen not to deal with us according to our actions.

The wonderful benefit of our choosing to relate in this way to others is that it works!  The more we see how well-designed are God's plans concerning us, the more we appreciate Him.  We know that we have not earned mercy by showing mercy.  We rejoice that we have discovered the reasons why God deals with us the way He does.

As a matter of fact, it makes us all the more eager to be in relationship with Him.

FULLNESS OF SATISFACTION

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  Matt. 5:6, R.S.V.

Have you ever eaten without satisfaction?  Eaten until you are stuffed but without contentment?  Why doesn't the feeling of fullness suffice?  The answer has to do with the way in which we were made in God's image.

We were not created to be mindless.  We have been given the equipment, as it were, for very fine tuning.  Our potential is staggering!  Yet we so often settle for so little.  We who were destined to share the throne of the Infinite keep ourselves scarcely above the beasts.

We have to go deliberately against this high calling in order to slide down into the dregs of humanity.  Though we are born into the world out of harmony with divine principles, God has placed within us the nagging desire for something better.  We plant flowers beside our houses, but not because they help hold up the foundations.  We like matching silverware and clean sheets.  And we aren't really satisfied with bland, unappetizing food, no matter how nutritious it might be.  Scientifically, we now know that food digested without relish is not utilized by the body to the same extent as food consumed with pleasure.

Our wise God knows that we will never be happy with a religion that delivers only the basics--legal standing in the heavenly courts--without the attendant fullness of restored friendship of heavenly beings.  It would be like obtaining a marriage contract in order to become a citizen of a country without then entering into the marriage relationship.  It might get you in, but in the ensuing days and years how much enjoyment would you have in living with a stranger?

With awakened minds, we may turn our faces toward heaven with eager anticipation.  To hunger and thirst after God and that relationship we may have with Him is to be filled with joyous anticipation.  It textures our lives with forbearance and sympathy, and stimulates us to new heights in soul winning.  After all, we weren't made to keep good things to ourselves, either.